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Health Fair to be held at CYO October 5

Sep 28th, 2018Bikash Regmi, Nurse Practitioner

Bikash Regmi (pictured below with his wife, Kumari) is a local nurse practitioner. He arrived in Syracuse as a refugee in 2009.

Catholic Charities of Onondaga County is hosting a health fair and breast cancer awareness program for the Syracuse refugee community on Friday, October 5th, from 10 am to noon. The event will take place at the agency’s Refugee Services North Side CYO (527 North Salina Street).

The goal of this health fair is to educate the people about the primary prevention, importance of finding the primary care, increase health awareness, health screening and to provide the resources which are available within the community. The target populations are mostly refugee and immigrants, but everyone is welcome to attend. According to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 8 women has a lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. Research shows that there is a low rate of mammogram screening in refugee and immigrant populations. More importantly, to help people to live the healthy life and encourage people to make the positive health behavior change. As a nurse practitioner, I cannot over stress the importance of primary prevention.

Every October my wife, Kumari, and I have been organizing the Breast Cancer awareness program. This is the first year for this health fair and the breast cancer awareness program. This was prompted by my visit with a community member few months ago. She was having some breast pain. She has gone to emergency room three times within a month with the same issue. With further questioning I discovered that she has no primary care provider.

When we were in refugee camps, there was no preventative care like there is here. As a result people assume that the emergency room is the only place to go when they have a problem. So one of my goals of the health fair is to encourage refugees to find a primary care provider if they do not have one. I also plan to bring a list of providers who are accepting new patients and help to connect them. Primary care providers help stay up-to-date with all the screening for all major health related conditions, assist to manage chronic conditions and improve life. This way we can save millions of taxpayer’s dollars in emergency room visits. Furthermore there can then be continuity of care and the people with life threatening issues will get treatment in a timely manner at emergency room.

The list of vendors who will be present at the health fair are: Upstate Medical University, TruCare Connection NY, On Point For College, American Red Cross, Empire Visionworks, United Health Care, Molina Healthcare, Hospice of CNY, Wilsons Dental, Kinney Drugs, HOA of CNY and Fidelis Care. We are expecting about 150-200 people.

When we came to this county everything was new. Many people have helped us in so many ways. This is the way we are giving back to the community that has given so much to us and saying thank you for welcoming us to this great county.

If you or anyone you know is interested in attending this event and needs more information, please contact us at 315-413-9489 or cholmes@ccoc.us.

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